Daves1940Buick56S

Even though I am *not* interested in getting another Buick (at this time!), I have been following Hemmings and Ebay pretty closely for the last 3 or 4 years to see "what is out there." In the last 3 weeks or so, it seems that a lot of cars are being put out there. For example, on Hemmings today, over a half dozen 53 Skylarks, and several 54s as well. And lots of pre-War cars, including 3 1936 Buick 3 window coupes. Is this a COVID effect? I figured that if the economic slowdown went on long enough that folks would need to dispose of cars to get some money. It could also be with more time at home people have the opportunity to prep cars for sale and get them out there. Maybe fewer auctions as well? Anyhow, the asking prices on the more desirable cars are holding firm, but the B list cars seem to be dropping in value somewhat, with some bargains. With this glut of cars it would seem that the prices will drop on the desirable cars as well shortly. More bargains! Thoughts? Cheers, Dave

I put the 8.20-15 DBs on my 1940 and, although a tight fit, no rubbing. They look good too with the widest WW. Don't know what the fit would be on the '54.

The 1950 manual is also incredibly good. I should add that this one is the last to cover the 248 engine as in '51 it was the 263. Not much difference though.

Hopefully you all will pardon a Buick guy over here! (Although I did grow up with a 23rd Series Eight as the family car...) I have always been fascinated with the instrument lights on these, with the fluorescent effect. This idea was adapted from the WW2 planes with the same setup on the instrument lights for night flying. This was accomplished, I know now, by using thin Wood's glass dome filters over the standard 55 bulbs. Apparently these filters were very fragile and most did not make it to the present day. Also, apparently the phosphorescence on the indicators and numbers could fade over time. I know that the filters were not present in our Eight, and the car was less than 10 yrs old when we got it. I always ask the 48/49 owners that I see at car shows about the inst lights and pretty much all have told me that the lights are either filterless or so dim as to be essentially useless. I recently had the opportunity to check out a 48 in a friend's shop with a UV flashlight and here is the result: In this car all of the phosphorescent paint still looks good, but all of the filters are gone. So I started to think about those with the filterless cars and wondered about using UV LEDs. If the car has been converted to 12V there is a UV version available using the BA9s base (same as 55). My friend is getting some to try so we will see about brightness since they have a diffusing dome over the LED. For the 6V owners I think I could make some using BA9s bases from dead 55s and setting the LED and dropping resistor (for current limiting on the LED) in epoxy. But I would still have to make some prototypes and test. So my question is, is there any interest in the 48/49 crowd in acquiring these if they could be a drop-in replacement? Or are most not driving their cars at night? Or has someone beat me to it? To check out the phosphorescent paint quality you can buy these UV flashlights pretty cheap: https://www.amazon.com/TaoTronics-Blacklight-Flashlights-Detector-Batteries/dp/B00RV8PREI/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=UV+flashlight&qid=1591406304&sr=8-6 (BTW these are good for tracking oil and antifreeze leaks as the liquids fluoresce under UV) Thanks, Dave

>> If run on 6v, will a LED lamp setup for 12v not work at all, be dimmer, or perform exactly the same as on 12v power? I can answer this. It will work, but when the brakes are used the brightness increases very little over the running lights. Also not that much brighter than the original bulbs. Get the 6V ones, you'll thank me later. (Sorry, watching Monk reruns). Cheers, Dave

Thanks, Shane, but I did locate and buy one 2 years ago. Almost perfect but I had to pay. It was a private sale and never advertised anywhere. But maybe someone will want this! Cheers, Dave

There was a request for lube recommendations on one of these a while back, and rather than hijack that I thought I would make a separate thread for bookmark purposes. This is a quick set of instructions for bringing one of these back to life. This is for a heater fan, the defroster motors are similar but smaller. 1. Pull off fan blade (should be a setscrew) and remove fan motor from shroud. 2. Remove the 2 nuts and washers on the front (shaft) side. 3. Ease the front shell off by sliding over the shaft. If lots of corrosion is present on the shaft, lightly sand and put a bit of light oil on to facilitate removal. 4. Remove the 2 small nuts that are up against the phenolic brush board. 5. Remove the 2 screws and carefully remove the 2 brass spacers. 6. Remove the field coil/brush and rotor together from the back shell, feeding the wire through as necessary. 7. Using toothpicks or similar, work the brushes back and remove rotor out the rear of the field assy. 8. Remove all washers from the rotor. Clean the rotor/commutator and field assy with CRC QD cleaner or equivalent 9. Examine the commutator. The QD cleaner may be sufficient. If not, chuck the rotor into a drill and lightly sand with 1000 grit sandpaper (not emery). 10. Using a fine needle, carefully clean out the small gaps between the commutator segments. Go over with QD one more time. 11. Examine the brushes. The should easily move in the brass slots with spring action evident. If they are gummed up there should be enough brush lead wire to carefully remove from the slots along with the springs. Clean out the slots with a Q-tip soaked in QD. Reassemble and check for proper operation. Note the brush position on the photo below. This is about right with relaxed springs. 12. Clean up the remainder of the parts with Brakleen or similar. 13. Soak the felts in the bushings in the front and back shells with light machine oil. 14. Reassemble in reverse order, making sure that the brushes don't get dinged up when inserting the rotor into the field assy. See pix below Entire motor assy Rotor and washers, commutator on right Closeup of brushes on phenolic

Neil: I had the same issue on my 1940 248 but have removed it 3 times now so I know the tricks: 1. Put the car up on ramps. Also jack up the frame a bit on ea side and put jack stands in. You want max amount of height under the car. Use plenty of chocks and be safe! It is best to use a creeper and go in head first. 2. Set the engine so that cyl 1 and 2 are about the half way point. This places the crank throws appx parallel to the ground. 3. Drain the oil and pull out the dipstick so you don't get poked in the eye! 4. Remove the pan bolts on the back side between the pan and lower clutch housing. If it's been a while since any cleaning has been done on the pan it will probably be a mess back there. 5. Remove the 4 front pan bolts. There will be 4 holes in the crossmember to accomplish this. 6. The tricky part. The next 2 bolts towards the rear on each side are tough to do because of the crossmember. I found it worked well using 1/4 inch drive socket and universal to get enough angle and purchase on it. Mag inserts help as well. 7. Remove the remainder of the bolts, pry the pan loose, and lower and pull to the rear to clear the crossmember and throws. You have to kind of thread it around the oil pump and screen as well. I found it best to have my head at the rear of the engine so I could wrestle it towards me and out on the left side. You will likely come out filthy so be prepared. 8. Pound out the pan dimples while it's out. 9. Reverse order to reinstall! Heh. You want to keep the pan gasket from moving around. I use Permatex #2. Use a torque wrench set to 10 lb ft in order not to re-dimple the pan. BTW I cannot raise the engine easily. I have rear motormounts on both of my cars so those would have to be undone as well. So the above was accomplished in normal configuration. Cheers Dave

Maybe it's not correct, but the maple ball looks cool! You can tell people that the "gearshift" was made for folks with really, really long arms!

So the window installs from the outside and not from the inside like the windshields? Do you have to use the string method to install? Cheers, Dave

I am in the process of replacing the door windows and seals (windshield already done) and while I have all of the garnish moldings out for woodgraining I was wondering about the fixed quarter windows. The seals on the inside are good but on the outside they are hard and starting to crack. Glass is OK. How do you pop them out? I have looked but cannot see any more screws. BTW the rear seals and glass are good all around, thank goodness. Cheers, Dave

Today I took a piece of the paint chip and put it in acetone. I though for sure that would dissolve it. Nope! I left it in for several hrs and nothing. Definitely urethane? One thing I have not done is to try and type of cleaner wax, I just used straight wax after I got it. I will try it on a hidden area and see if any color appears on the rag. If not - maybe it's clear coat?

From the brochures I have managed to look at, this is correct. The plastic piece is on the Series 40.

Sorry for the lousy pics, but is this door garnish molding correct for a 1938 66S? No plastic trim piece at the center.

All: My 1938 66S has a spotlite. This was not original to the car and was added sometime after 1979. I would like to remove it if I can get the holes patched properly. The hole in the windshield garnish molding can be filles when I get it re-woodgrained next month. The body is another question. Pic attached. I am not sure what the paint is. I have a chip of it (it came from the white spot in the pic), it is 0.01" thick. It does not dissolve or deform in any way in lacquer thinner. Maybe urethane? It looks so good I thought it might be lacquer but no. Assuming I can nail down the paint, do you think I can get the holes filled and this small area painted and have it look good? It is difficult to get a good photo as the body color is black.

1953. Brakes failed and a GG-1 goes into the concourse and thru the floor at Union Station, DC.

Way to go Dave! Can't wait to see it! Cheers, Dave

There were a lot of cars painted in that scheme in the 80s/90s. Lots of Model A's. Larry D calls it "coffee 2 creams." My 1940 56S is painted just like that. Not original, sure, but it all depends on what you are going to do with the car. If you want it judged you will lose some points. My 1940 is strictly my fun car so I don't care about that. In any event, it's your car - keep it or change it, totally up to you. I guarantee you it will be appreciated by us and others either way. Cheers, Dave

Looove those 3 window coupes! Good luck! Cheers, Dave

Matt: You are going to get a lot of responses and probably some debate. One of your questions - the valve, as designed anyhow, does not fully close. There will be a small area visible around the seat where a small amount of coolant can go thru. Someone on here calculated it to be about equivalent to a 1/4" hole. I took out the plunger part and replaced it with an appropriately sized freeze plug with a 1/4" hole thru the center of the plug. Cheers, Dave

Yeah I know. The wire I referred to above that my friend has is like you described. On motorcycles the connection to the fuel injectors has to withstand constant movement. I think it is basically the same. Cheers Dave

Aaaand...you all were correct 100%. Bad capacitor (condenser). My analog analyzer has a position that shunts in another one and when I switched it in everything smoothed out. Also point resistance up so it likely took the points with it. In 50 years of driving with about half of that on the standard ignition I have never had a capacitor fail. So maybe this is the Condenser of Shame? Anyhow, I know I have at least 2 or 3 unused point sets but I'll be damned if I can find them right now. I do have a NOS ACDelco condenser so I put that in and cleaned and burnished the old points. I also replaced the lead to the feedthru (the old one was pretty chewed up). I know standard wiring only lasts so long there but a friend has some of the hi-flex wire used on motorcycle fuel injector to wiring harness and I will replace when I put the new points in when the weather warms up more. It'll be fine for around town this winter. Cheers, Dave

And the answer is...coming tomorrow! Weather today not conducive.

Well, it finally happened. Breakdown on the road. I was returning home after having the front shocks, motor mounts and clutch replaced on my 1940 56S. About 60 miles from the mechanic's shop to my house. Everything was truly great at first. The car rode better than it ever has and was very smooooth. It just wanted to go 55 to 60 mph and the speed kept creeping up if I didn't pay attention. And I finally got a properly functioning clutch as well (I will do a separate thread on that later). A little more than halfway home, I started getting intermittant engine stuttering - what felt like either vapor lock or some kind of fuel starvation, although I wasn't getting the backfiring thru the carb. In fact, it seemed to be thru the exhaust, more like afterfire. It slowly got worse, and was especially bad trying to pull away from a traffic lite. It still was idling ok, but after a while even that was bad - intermittant 5+ inches vacuum drop. Finally, about 5 miles from home, it got so bad that I felt I could do other damage by proceeding further. So I stopped and called for the Tow of Shame. While I was waiting I tried a few things. Remove fuel tank cap - no change. Got elec boost pump working (it was not on the trip) - no change. Fuel pressure good. The clear gas filter before the carb was not conclusive regarding fuel flow, just confusing. I pulled the plug on the side of the bowl and fuel looked at proper level. I jiggled the floats and fuel appears to be flowing fine. I had no instruments with me to check ignition. The backfiring was not terrible but was definitely thru the exhaust. So Fri I am going to start with a fuel flow capacity test, but at this point I am thinking ignition capacitor. Thoughts? Cheers, Dave

Depends on how you want to use it. If just for pre-start priming and use in vapor lock conditions like a long hill climb like I do, I would just mount a switch near the driver and just get the power from the B term of the horn relay on the firewall. Don't forget to fuse it as well, 10A should be plenty. If you want it to run continuously, you probably want some kind of auto shutoff to keep fuel from spewing out in case of a serious accident. Some have used an oil pressure switch and they can chime in here. Cheers, Dave